By Pure Chance
by RosesandThorns666
Summary: As Dean knows very well, hunting is a tough enough life as it is without falling in love in the process. Running into another hunter by pure chance while looking for a ghost is one thing, but when that hunter turns out to be an old flame, things become just that little bit harder to deal with. Please R&R! M for language and content.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: **As Dean knows very well, hunting is a tough enough life as it is without falling in love in the process. Running into another hunter by pure chance while looking for a ghost is one thing, but when that hunter turns out to be an old flame, things become just that little bit harder to deal with. Please R&R!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Supernatural _or its characters. I only own my OC.

**A/N: **I apologise profusely for the lack of updates. We had our sixteen year old dog put to sleep (14/9/12) and we've all found it difficult to get on with things because its like a huge empty space is there, so I've not wanted to write really at all since then. I also can't decide which fic to update next which makes it more difficult. I want to make this Dean/OC really PWP eventually. I just need some romance at the moment. I hope you enjoy!

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**By Pure Chance**

**Chapter One**

The hunting life was one that Dean and Sam Winchester had always known.

They'd been clutched in its cold, cruel fist for the majority of their lives, and it was all they knew. Sam was the only one out of the two with any experience of a normal life, and he only had that for two short years, and even that had been completely destroyed and shadowed in unhappiness. Dean had no idea what it was like to have a domestic life, with a normal job and a normal relationship. His only relationships consisted of one night stands. Nothing serious. He'd been with few girls in his life for longer than a few weeks and they were the ones that he considered to be something he could call special.

The cold of a November morning crept into the dingy motel room that Dean and his baby brother were sleeping in, he shivered slightly, curling tighter into a ball on his lumpy mattress and pulled the all too thin sheets over him. He snuggled further into his flat pillow, making his short light brown hair look even more messy than it already was. His eyes, a beautiful shade of green, opened so very slowly, eyelids fluttering like the wings of a delicate butterfly.

"Son of a bitch." He muttered bitterly as he let out a soft but deep grunt as he rolled over to look at the time on his cell phone.

Six in the morning. Nothing changes. Even after averting an apocalypse and saving the world, hunting waited for no man. No rest for the wicked. Dean figured he must've been one rotten bastard because he never felt like he and Sam got the rest they needed. They were constantly on the go, tired and wearing themselves out, and Dean knew that he wasn't getting any younger. It pissed him off because his back would start to hurt and his knees started to creak a little when he would bend them. He felt like he was growing old.

He was also surprised, and eternally grateful that he wasn't going grey yet, given the amount of stress that he and Sam had been under in their lifetime, it was a wonder either of them still looked their ages. Speaking of Sam, the taller and broader of the Winchester brothers stretched, groaning and opening his eyes as the cold hit him. His floppy, slightly darker brown hair was brushed out of his eyes by his own large hand, and he looked over at Dean, sighing as his brother got up to use the bathroom.

"Don't take forever in there, jerk!" He yelled, wincing as Dean slammed the door.

"Bitch!" Came the usual reply, and with a heavy breath and a pout that would make any woman jealous, Sam got out of bed, willing Dean to hurry up in the shower.

It was so cold, unusually cold for November, and it didn't take Sam a great length of time to decide to reclaim his bed sheets and cover himself with as he began to research their current case. It appeared to be an average haunting, where a spirit was attacking teenage boys. All the victims had one thing in common.

They were the popular kids in school. The ones who screwed the best looking girls and were treated different by the teachers. They were jocks. And they were all connected to each other by their friendship with the most popular guy in the whole school. Sam had discovered that the ghost was female, as each of the boy's statements featured them seeing a young girl in a white nightdress. Rather cliché, Sam thought, but nonetheless important. So, he was researching deaths of teenage girls in the area over the past ten years, and the most recent was several months previously.

The girl's name was Lydia Carmichael and she'd committed suicide by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. No suicide note was found, so identifying what had gone so wrong in this girl's life became so much more difficult. It would mean visiting her parents, and Sam really wasn't sure what excuse they could come up with to be questioning them about their daughter's death. It took another fifteen minutes for Dean to return from the bathroom, and Sam didn't even want to begin to imagine what his older brother had been doing in that shower.

"I'm gonna get us some breakfast. What do you want?" Dean asked as he grabbed his clothes from the bed trying to keep the towel round his waist.

"Um...Just some coffee please, and a bagel." Sam replied, standing and finding his own clothes to dress in as he lay the covers back on the creaky old bed again, "Oh, and while you're out, think of a reason we can use to visit the parents of a girl who I think might be our ghost."

"What she die of?" Dean asked as he slid under the covers to put his boxer shorts on.

"She was an eighteen year old who committed suicide." Sam said, "I think we should talk to her mom and dad and see what was going on around the time she died."

"Sure thing." Dean replied, sliding his thin black t-shirt over his head, "I take it she died recently."

"A couple of months back. It might explain why this ghost is targeting this group of boys. Maybe they're connected to her somehow."

With a nod, Dean continued to get dressed, watching his brother head to the bathroom. As he slid on his familiar leather jacket, he breathed in its scent, relaxing as the smell of leather and the hint of scent from his car filled his nostrils. He smiled, grabbing his wallet and keys from his bag before heading out of the door.

There was a small café about three blocks away from the motel which actually looked quite nice to the brothers as they'd passed it on their way into town, so Dean knew exactly where he needed to go. As he stepped into the crisp morning air he shuddered, pulling his coat around him the best he could. His reddening hands suddenly entwined themselves together as he began to rub them to keep warm.

Getting into the car, he started the ignition, grinning widely as he felt his baby begin to purr. He gave her a pat on the steering wheel before he set off for the small café. He was pretty relieved when he came across it, and found a good parking spot at the same time. He entered the café quickly, passing a young woman as he entered and knocking her slightly.

"Sorry." He muttered, catching a glimpse of her face which brought memories flooding back to him quicker than he could take a breathe, and out of instinct, he wound his strong fingers around her arm and pulled her back slightly, "Oh, my God..."

The woman turned and took a look at him, her expression one of shock, surprise, disbelief and of pure recognition as she looked into his eyes. The last time he'd seen her was just before his father had gone missing, and Dean had a feeling that this wasn't a meeting that happened purely by chance. They stared at each other as they remembered the short time they'd spent together all those years back, and Dean saw her eyes flickering with all sorts of emotions.

"Dean?"

"Kate?"

-TBC-

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**Hope you enjoyed!**

**Thanks for reading so far!  
**

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	2. Chapter 2

**Summary: **As Dean knows very well, hunting is a tough enough life as it is without falling in love in the process. Running into another hunter by pure chance while looking for a ghost is one thing, but when that hunter turns out to be an old flame, things become just that little bit harder to deal with. Please R&R!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Supernatural _or its characters. I only own my OC.

**A/N: **Thanks for the support with the first chapter! I hope you enjoy this one too!

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**By Pure Chance**

**Chapter Two**

"Jesus, Kate...How've you been?" Dean asked as they moved out of the way of the café door, "What the hell are you doing out here?"

Kate smiled up at him, cup of coffee held between her small hands, close enough to her face to warm it slightly against the cold of that morning. Looking up at Dean, she realised how beautiful he really was. She'd missed him. Those years without him had been long, and he'd been the only hunter who she'd felt a connection with in all her years of hunting.

"Hunting." She said quietly, so as not to draw attention to herself, "I imagine you and Sammy are up here doing the same thing."

"Yeah..." Dean replied, looking to the ground as she rubbed his arm gently.

"I'm sorry about John." She told him, "I know it's probably not much of a consolation now..."

Dean smiled at her weakly as she grimaced at him with sympathetic eyes, and the pair moved towards the counter so Dean could get his and Sam's order. Kate hadn't changed much. She still made Dean's heart flutter on sight, and her voice still gave him the kind of chills he shouldn't feel in public.

"Thanks." He said softly, ordering breakfast for him and his brother before turning back to the young woman, "You look good."

He didn't need to ask her how she heard about John. Kate was a friend of Ellen's. She'd visited the Roadhouse a lot, and Ellen was like a mother to her. Dean wondered if she knew about Ellen and Jo's deaths.

"So do you." Kate replied, solemnly gazing out of the window, "You hear about Ellen?"

Dean stopped in his tracks, paying the cashier and sighing quietly as he turned to face the young woman. He couldn't believe that he'd just been thinking about that and she'd brought it up. Talk about minds thinking alike. He knew that she knew the truth, because he could see the look on her face. Turning back the cashier, he thanked her and took his order before moving out of the line as he tried to get Kate to look at him. He had to make her understand what really happened.

"I did my best to protect and help Jo...Ellen didn't wanna leave her to die alone..." Dean whispered, "I am so, so sorry, Kate...We took them with us and we didn't expect that to happen."

"I know." She breathed, wiping her eyes as tears welled up in them, "I heard. Thank you for what you did for them both."

Dean carefully led her outside, not seeing the car she'd driven all those years ago. He opened the door to his baby and put the breakfast on his seat, turning to Kate who tried to smile at him through her near tears. He'd taken her outside so they didn't draw attention to themselves, and so that she could be away from prying eyes and ears. The last thing she needed was for some idiot to start asking questions about stuff they didn't understand.

"Where's the Mustang?" He asked, watching her face fall again.

"Crushed." She replied, "I just use the train and walk most of the time."

"What happened?" Dean asked her with a worried expression on his face, "How'd it get crushed?"

"I had an accident." She said, "Head on with a guy in a four-wheel drive."

Dean winced at the thought of her being in such an accident, and he couldn't help but check whether or not she'd been seriously injured in that crash.

"You okay now?" He asked, "How bad were you hurt?"

"I was actually quite lucky. Just a fractured leg, broken arm and cuts and bruises." She replied with a heavy sigh, "Oh...and I got impaled in the side by a piece of metal flying through the wind shield and pinning me to my seat. It was like _Final Destination_. Very scary."

"Jeez..." Dean breathed, leaning against his car as he looked her over with concern, "Where are you staying?"

"The same shit hole that you're staying in." She told him, watching him as he walked around the other side of the car and opened the door, shooting her a soft glare before indicating for her to get into the car.

"I'm not a charity case." She told him, sipping her coffee as he rolled his eyes and moved around the other side of the car.

"Kate, you're staying at the same place as us, you're, in all likelihood, working on the same case as us." Dean said as he arched an eyebrow at us, "Come on...We can work through this one together. Just like old times."

Rolling her eyes, Kate made her way forward, allowing Dean to hold the door open for her and then close it as she got herself comfortable in the front seat of his baby.

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In the last few weeks of her life, the girl that the trio suspected was the ghost they were hunting had become withdrawn, according to her parents. She barely ate, barely spoke and more often than not failed to attend school. The group knew they had to speak to the boys again in order to try to find out what had happened to cause her to commit suicide. They had to have heard something or known something because they evidently knew Lydia. She attended the same school and was in their grade.

Sam, who had been surprised to see Kate, had welcomed her back with open arms. She knew all about what had happened from Bobby, who she had also kept in touch with over the years. She knew about the angels, demons, Lucifer...Everything. Sam couldn't help notice the way Dean was hanging around her like she was some kind of prey. The pair knew that she'd fallen on hard times, so Sam wondered whether his brother wanted to take care of her and protect her, or if he had other motives on his mind.

"You know what I think...?" Kate muttered quietly as she listened to the brothers' accounts of the boys' statements, "I think that they did something to her. I think that the reason she became so withdrawn was because something awful happened to her. Spirits aren't after blood for no reason. If anyone knows that, it's us."

"What do you think they did?" Dean asked her, wary of his questioning.

"I don't think all of them caused this." Kate told them, "I just think that maybe something happened that we don't know about involving these boys, and that led to her killing herself. She's appearing to them. No other boys. None of the girls. They have to be connected to her somehow."

"It's possible." Dean sighed, "Spirits normally only attack as an act of revenge."

"Well..." Kate said, standing and grabbing her coat, "Only one thing to do. Find the boys, and ask them outright what happened."

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"We can make all of this stop if you just tell us what happened." Kate told the youngest of the boys.

There were four of them. Bradley, Marcus, Zachary and Leon. The leader of the group was Brian, who was too busy playing football to speak to the trio, who were claiming to be paranormal researchers. It wasn't a very big lie. It was actually very close to the truth. Bradley was the youngest, and the one who seemed more keen to open up to them.

"Lydia and Brian dated for about two months..." He said, looking to the others for the okay to continue, "Lydia was one of the weird goth kids...Brian didn't want to admit to dating her. He wasn't even dating her seriously. She really liked him, but he just wanted to screw her and then have done."

Kate and the brothers nodded for him to continue, and Kate had a pretty good idea of where the story was going. She was one of the weird kids in high school. A jock dated her and then dumped her without so much as an explanation. She didn't cut herself or anything over it, but if Lydia had real, serious feelings for Brian then it was possible that him breaking her heart caused her to commit suicide.

"He got what he wanted." Zachary spoke up, running a hand through his spiky blonde hair, "She let him take her virginity...Then she arrived at school and saw him all over Madison Bridges the following Monday. It was a shitty thing that Brian did, and we've all been dragged down for it."

"What happened after, then?" Sam asked, "Did Lydia's behaviour change at all?"

"She didn't come to school much. She was never in the cafeteria at lunch. She always looked tired. She genuinely thought that Brian wanted to be with her long term." Marcus explained, "We knew that Brian was planning to sleep with her but we never knew he'd just dump her."

"Yeah, he broke her heart." Leon said, "She wasn't the same after that. We tried to offer her comfort and help, but because she assumed we knew what he'd been planning, she didn't want anything to do with us."

Kate sighed and rubbed a hand over her eyes, looking up at the boys who all looked between each other sheepishly.

"So...He led her on, broke her heart, and then she killed herself?" The young woman asked, earning nods from the four boys.

She got up from the table and thanked them for their help, heading away from the school yard with Dean and Sam in tow. The next thing was to find the bones of Lydia Carmichael, then salt and burn them. Dean looked at Kate's expression. The young woman was livid. Her eyes had darkened with the fury she felt over what had happened to this girl.

"Kate...You okay?" He asked her, earning a nod as she got into the back seat of the Impala.

"Fine." She replied quietly, "Let's just put this poor girl to rest, huh?"

-TBC-

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**Hope you enjoyed!**

**Thanks for reading so far!  
**

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**


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